Fede - what is the mistake? I would have thought this round was a month later, September 1898 (9th month). Questions are sincere - I don’t know much about the Krag headstamps and while I no longer own a Krag, regretably, I have had as many as six of them at one time, including the rare 1892 (unaltered) and 1892/96 rifles. I like them very much and I would like to learn more about these headstamps, even though I don’t collect them.

John, sorry, I meant to say September (9th month). The mistake of these early FA headstamps is that many of them are very off-centered and is quite common to find broken numbers or even a broken “F” letter. The full correct headstamp should be “F 9 98” and not just “F 9 8”.

Looking closely, you can see the loop of the right side of the nine between the primer and the eight, as Fede stated, this occurs frequently on F A made Krag cartridges. And, it cannot be any other year, as 98 is the only year which contains the number eight on this style of Frankford headstamp.